My dad had these great Benny Goodman albums that I was obsessed with, and Louis Prima's another guy I loved, and Peter Niro the jazz pianist. I loved international music: Irish music, Mexican music. I love the different colours that they all have.
I was into all kinds of music as a teen - country music, because my dad was in a band that played country, and whatever my sister and brother were into.
I lived in the Caribbean when I was a teenager, so I learned about Salsa and Cha-Cha and all these Latin Afro-Cuban music like Gillespie and Duke Ellington, also bridged with Jazz. But my mother is Greek, and so I've also listened a lot to Greek music. And through the years to Balcanic music to Arabic music because my father loved music from Egypt.
I tended to listen to doo-wop, but my grandmother would always have the radio on all day and she'd start with Yiddish and then move on to gospel and later to "make believe" ballroom music. I got to hear all kinds of music and my mother would get up to go to work listening to country music. That was her alarm clock. My dad was a jazz lover and listened to the man who wrote "Misty", Errol Garner. He loved piano players, so I got to listen to that as well.
I grew up in a home filled with music and had an early appreciation of jazz since my dad was a jazz musician. Beginning at around age three I started singing with his band and jazz music has continued to be one of my three passions along with acting and writing. I like to say jazz music is my musical equivalent of comfort food. It's always where I go back to when I want to feel grounded.
I grew up in Detroit. So my mother always loved big band music.
I've been touching instruments since the day I was born. My mother is Brazilian, and she listens to Brazilian music. My father was a musician, and I've seen pictures of him when he was in a band playing guitar and piano. He loved country music, Frank Sinatra, and stuff like that.
I always loved country music. But I didn't even know I could sing. I just knew I loved the music.
I don't remember ever not singing. My mother loved music, and she taught me songs, country music, spirituals. I would sing for people and pass the hat when I was 4.
Presley is country music, white music. Jazz is black music - it was invented by the blacks in New Orleans. And I'm really a jazz singer. I was impressed with Elvis - he was the handsomest guy I ever met in my life, and a very nice person, too. But the music doesn't impress me.
I love all types of music - jazz, great pop music, world music and folk music - but the music I listen to most is piano music from the 18th, 19th and 20th century. Russian music in particular.
My dad was all about music. He was a musician, leading a band when I was born. His band was active all through the 40s. He'd started it in the late 20s and 30s. According to the scrapbook, his band was doing quite well around the Boston area. During the Depression they were on radio. It was a jazz-oriented band. He was a trumpet player, and he wrote and arranged for the band. He taught me how to play the piano and read music, and taught me what he knew of standard tunes and so forth. It was a fantastic way to come up in music.
It was a free-for-all with music when I was growing up. My mother was a huge music fanatic so I was listening to everything from country to heavy metal to Indigo Girls to Elton John. I guess when I was really young I didn't like Willie Nelson, and she obviously loved him. Now I do too, I'm so thankful to her for playing his music nonstop.
My dad loved jazz, so there was a little Miles Davis, Otis Redding, Donny Hathaway. My mum is French, so she'd listen to a lot of French music, but a lot of the music that actually formed my taste, I just found online.
My thing was, I loved music. I played music: I played the saxophone. So the little bit of music knowhow I had, I tried to implement that in every thing I did, from my style, my cadence, the way I tried to pause and stagnate it; that all came from John Coltrane and listening to jazz albums. Trying to rhyme like a jazz player.
Big band music, to me, it really has three key elements. First is the lyrics are really sweet, and they're just really family-friendly. The second thing is the music is jazz music, so the music is complicated enough to hold your attention for 5 or 6 million plays. That makes the songs interesting. The last part is the fact that it's danceable.